Find a TenderPlanned procurementPreliminary market engagement notice
Published 5 Dec 2025, 12:05 GMT

Official UK procurement notice

Single Homelessness Services Tender

Authority: Watford Borough Council (Local council)

ServicesAbove thresholdLight touch regime
Sectors: Community & Cultural Services (98) Delivery: UK
Planned pipeline value£2,340,000pipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected Date not publishedfrom the planned procurement notice
Contract term Ends 17 Dec 2025starts 7 Dec 2025

What is being bought

Published requirement description

Watford Borough Council is preparing to commission Single Homelessness Services namely: Housing First (Lot 1), Multi-disciplinary Outreach Service (Lot 2) and Integrated Support & Step-Down Service (Lot 3). It is anticipated that the tender will be published on 2nd January 2026 under section 9 of the Procurement Act 2023, Light Touch Contracts. Potential Providers should be aware of this upcoming opportunity.

The Council will be using its e-tendering system (Delta) for the administration of this exercise and suppliers must register with the system to be able to download the Questionnaires document and to provide a response. If you wish to provide a response to this ONE, TWO or ALL questionnaires, please click the link to our Delta e-tendering portal.

The deadline for responses is 12:00hrs (noon), 17th December 2025 which should be returned via Delta, our e-procurement platform messaging.

To view this notice, please click here:

www.delta-esourcing.com/delta/viewNotice.html ↗

CPV: Other community, social and personal services

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published
Lot #1Planned

Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published

How Watford Borough Council buys Other community, social and personal services (CPV 98), and who usually turns up

Watford Borough Council’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Other community, social and personal services (CPV 98) →

1

How the contest usually goes

Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.

Question for the bid
This buyerWatford Borough Council · all categories
What to do with it
How often do SMEs win?
i

How often small and medium firms win.

Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.

The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 11 of 22 known-size awards · market: division 98 · UK-wide, n=788
50%53%

Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.

How often do local suppliers win?
i

How often local firms win similar work.

Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.

Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered.

A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 1 of 10 known-location awards · market: division 98 · UK-wide, n=848
10%71%

Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.

How long to a decision?
i

How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.

Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.

Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 6 decided notices · market: division 98 · UK-wide, n=205
43 days40 days

Half of these awards have an award date within 43 days of the bid deadline.

How often single-bid or direct?
i

How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.

Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.

Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.

Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: at least 14 of 26 procurements with awards had no recorded rival · market: division 98 · UK-wide, n=1,121
54%57%

Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.

How many bids did past lots attract?

i

How many bids past lots received.

Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.

Past bids do not predict this tender.

Last 36 months.

This buyer10 lots with bid counts · all categories
20% had one bid
The market411 lots with bid counts · division 98 · UK-wide
25% had one bid
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
1 bid20% / 25%
Buyer: 2 of 10 lots with published bid counts. Market: 103 of 411 lots with published bid counts.
2–340% / 40%
Buyer: 4 of 10 lots with published bid counts. Market: 165 of 411 lots with published bid counts.
4–630% / 25%
Buyer: 3 of 10 lots with published bid counts. Market: 103 of 411 lots with published bid counts.
7+10% / 10%
Buyer: 1 of 10 lots with published bid counts. Market: 40 of 411 lots with published bid counts.

How did awards compare with estimates?

i

Where winning prices landed against estimates.

Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.

Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.

Last 36 months.

This buyer8 lots with estimate and award · all categories
25% below estimate
The market254 lots with estimate and award · division 98 · UK-wide
28% below estimate
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
Below estimate25% / 28%
Buyer: 2 of 8 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 72 of 254 lots with an estimate and award.
Within ±2%75% / 57%
Buyer: 6 of 8 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 144 of 254 lots with an estimate and award.
Above estimate0% / 15%
Buyer: 0 of 8 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 38 of 254 lots with an estimate and award.
2

Assess each lot
i

What past awards tell you about each lot.

See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.

No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.

Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list

Lot #1CPV 98Published estimate£2.3m

This lot lists more than one class in CPV 98. The comparison uses that group.

Expected competition
i

How many bids this lot may attract.

The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.

Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 411 past lots.

A forecast, not a list of bidders.

—No model forecast yet25% chance of a single bid
Past bids on 411 similar lots
1 bid25%
103 of 411 similar past lots received 1 bid (25%).
2–340%
165 of 411 similar past lots received 2–3 (40%).
4–625%
103 of 411 similar past lots received 4–6 (25%).
7+10%
40 of 411 similar past lots received 7+ (10%).
Comparable past lots usually drew 3 bids.
Commercial price forecast
i

Where the award price may land.

The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.

No comparable awards for this lot yet.

A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.

—No model forecast yet
No comparable awards on record for this lot’s category yet. The published estimate is £2.3m, and the forecast stays empty until the market has a record to read.

Who has supplied this buyer on similar work?
i

Who has done similar work for this buyer.

Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.

A past supplier may not bid again.

No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.

Who could compete for this lot?
i

Who could compete for this lot?

Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.

None is confirmed as a bidder.

Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.

About this data
  • Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
  • Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
  • Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
  • Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Procurement category
Services
Notice status
Planned procurement
Procurement threshold
Above threshold (FTS publication)
Regulatory regime
Light touch regime
Commercial structure
Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type
Competitive procedure
GPA / WTO covered
Unspecified in notice
Recurring procurement
Unspecified in notice
First published
5 Dec 2025, 12:05 GMT
Last source update
5 Dec 2025, 12:05 GMT
FTS notice number
2025/S 000-080094
Latest notice
Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
Classification (CPV)
Other community, social and personal services
Delivery area
UK
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-05ef8a Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

5 Dec 2025 → 17 Dec 2025 · 3 dates
  1. Planning notice published325 days ago
    5 Dec 2025, 12:05 GMT
  2. Contract starts324 days ago
    7 Dec 2025
  3. Market engagement313 days ago
    17 Dec 2025, 23:59 GMT

    Preliminary Market Engagement Questionnaire

Notice history

1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender
  1. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    5 Dec 2025, 12:05 GMT
    UK2

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Pipeline notice
Awards (0)
No award published
Contracts (0)
No contract published
Bid statistics
No aggregate bid statistics published

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

Watford Borough Council

Contracting authorityPublic authority - sub-central government GB-PPON: PDGQ-4877-NMGQ Town Hall, Watford, East of England, WD17 3EXContact email, phone

Official documents & specifications (1)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure